Les Métaboles / Léo Warynski THE ANGELS

 

THE ANGELS

Célimène Daudet HAÏTI MON AMOUR

 

HAÏTI MON AMOUR

 

Ensemble 2e2m / Pierre Roullier / Hélène Fauchère AURÉLIEN DUMONT Tide

 

TIDE

 

Emmanuel Ceysson / Frédéric Chatoux AFTER A DREAM

AFTER A DREAM

Amanda Favier / Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège / Adrien Perruchon IGOR STRAVINSKY Concerto in D Major JOHN CORIGLIANO The Red Violin Concerto

                                         IGOR STRAVINSKY - JOHN CORIGLIANO

Ensemble Ouranos QUINTETTES À VENT

From the moment we first created Ensemble Ouranos, we were deeply convinced that we should forge our group's artistic identity through an engaged exploration of repertoire. This remains the predominant goal of our work to this day: that each member's language join in one breath to form the ensemble. The choice to bring these three pieces together in one album stems from two desires on our part. Firstly, our wish was to offer up the many facets of the wind quintet and the diversity of its musical languages. The wealth of possibilities is inherent to this ensemble makeup and the very nature of wind instruments, at once soloistic in their individual voices and deeply orchestral when one melds their particular sounds. Secondly, we also wanted to highlight the idea of folk material as an essential part of musical discourse. Upon inspection, this omnipresent and protean folklore appears clearly as a linking thread between these three works. It is fascinating to discover at which point each of the three composers transcends his national heritage to transmit, in his own way, his inner life.
(Ensemble Ouranos)

Cédric Tiberghien / Orchestre national d'Île-de-France / Enrique Mazzola LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN Concerto pour piano No. 1 - Symphonie No. 5

A veritable celebration cocktail, this album has been conceived as a showcase of Beethoven’s orchestral and pianistic genius.
Cédric Tiberghien and the Orchestre national d’Île-de-France, conducted by Enrique Mazzola, have come together for their first recording after enjoying five years of collaboration on the stage.

Les Folies Françoises / Patrick Cöhen-Akenine FRANÇOIS COUPERIN Portraits crosés

The great originality of the harpsichord works of François Couperin (1668-1733) lies in his progressively freeing himself from dance suite forms inherited from the 17th century to compose genre pieces, equipped with proper titles and grouped in ordres (of the same tonality, alternating major and minor). Even if one can still hear underlying dances, Couperin builds as a composition principle a Classical aesthetic founded upon imitation.

Yet while specialising in musical portraits, Couperin often falls impishly into enigmatic titles: one of the favourite games of harpsichordists and musicologists has always consisted of attempting to decipher them.

L'Instant Donné / EXAUDI / Marion Tassou GÉRARD PESSON Musique de chambre, Cantates

The product of a close collaboration between Instant Donné and the composer Gérard Pesson, this double-album gathers chamber and vocal works with the collaboration of Ensemble EXAUDI and the soprano Marion Tassou.
Always carried by words, the music of Gérard Pesson is here inseparable from the texts of Marie Redonnet, Matthieu Nuss, Gerard Manley Hopkins and Elena Andreyev. Melding electronic incursions crossed with a nod to the past, most notably Baroque music, poetic catalyst and a legacy asserted by the composer, this recording is beautiful introduction to his utterly singular world.

Orchestre national d'île-de-France / Enrique Mazzola / Rex Lawson DARIUS MILHAUD La Bien-Aimée IGOR STRAVINSKY L'Oiseau de feu

The origins of this CD are unique. e story begins a few years ago, when I met Rex Lawson, an imaginative musician who is probably the world's foremost pianola virtuoso.

The day I visited his studio, which contained thousands of pianola rolls, I felt as though I was entering a cave of Ali Baba. All these old rolls, all this forgotten music, were enough to leave any musician dumbfounded! Rex immediately piqued my curiosity by telling me that a piece for pianola and orchestra composed by Milhaud and first performedin Paris in 1928, on the same evening as Ravel's Bolero, had fallen into oblivion. That's when a kind of treasure hunt began. Rex found the orchestra score (the original!) at Northwestern University, in the United States.

Meanwhile, the publisher Universal came up with the orchestral material, which of course matched up perfectly with the score. Last, but by no means least, Rex Lawson heroically produced a new roll for the pianola part. Next, a conductor had to be found who would want to perform the piece again. That's where I came in! So that's how, like a phoenix rising from the ashes, La Bien-Aimée was brought back to life after going unheard for many years. What a pleasure to discover the pages of this score, which had never been recorded; to sit at the piano and imagine Milhaud developing the bits of piano music of Schubert and Liszt, the orchestration, sometimes comical, sometimes very refined; and then to listen to the roll that Rex had reconstructed. The experience was so exhilarating that we decided to make this recording with the Orchestre national d'Île-de-France. (Enrique Mazzola)

Isabelle Druet / Anne LeBozec SHAKESPEARE SONGS

There are thousands of vocal and instrumental settings of Shakespeare's texts, drawn from his comedies, tragedies and sonnets alike. The music celebrating his verse covers more than four centuries: this fascination has lived on into the 20th century and does not appear to be running out of steam.
A linguistic virtuoso, a master of human emotions, an expert in Machiavellian stories of intrigue and tyranny, and a bard of love and of the moment - these are but a few of the many facets of the Shakespearian message. We follow him into the heart of humanity and its excesses, from madness to the burlesque, from despair to bonhomie, from hatred of one's fellow man to universal love. So is it really surprising that so many composers in so many languages have used such a rich tapestry of humanity, or that we - the singers at the end of this great chain - have decided to devote a recital to him? Several figures recur: Ophelia “in her sweet madness” and Desdemona in her despair, two women of high birth, infinitely fragile, victims of the machinery of power, of the vengeance and jealousy that eats at the hearts of men. Also appearing regularly is the fool or jester, the only member of the court - where everyone is muzzled - who can tell the truth in the form of a caricature or lament.
But this program also has a certain lightness, for it too undergirds the world, and Shakespeare celebrates it with Silvia or Cymbeline: idealized female figures who are depicted with ardor, astonishment, and rapture.
Shakespeare shows us the path through this labyrinth. He knows where the world is headed.
Let's follow him! (Isabelle Druet & Anne Le Bozec)

Hugues Chabert / Élisa Huteau SERGEI RACHMANINOV Études-Tableaux op. 39 - Sonate op. 19

Between chamber music and solo recital, Hugues Chabert has chosen not to choose, bringing together in his debut album the two inseparable components of his life as a pianist.
Oscillating between deep interiority and expressive generosity, the Etudes-tableaux op.39 and Cello sonata op.39 are pure jewels of instrumental lyricism, introducing two facets of Rachmaninov's music.